Heres something easy to formulate, yes, its sticky, it burns at high temperatures and it been used in the Vietnam War.

It's Napalm!

Besides the simple old gasoline + thickener formula, does anyone here know more on other combinations of gasoline + thickener solutions or
alternatives? Does adding in an oxidixer improve results of Napalm? Aren't there
alternatives besides thermite for other incediary chemicals?

Originally posted by Polverone
Napalm is not exotic enough to qualify for discussion here. As a rule, we don't discuss weapons, unless there is something novel or exotic about their
chemistry. Napalm is well-documented, though a lot of misinformation circulates on the web.

sparky (~_~)

"What's UTFSE? I keep hearing about it, but I can't be arsed to search for the answer..."

There are many many variations on thermite. There have already been many threads dealing with these and with posted attachments of their formulas.

No need to start another.

Napalm was developed by Professor Louis Feiser, same man as editor of the famous series "Reagents for Organic Synthesis". It is an aluminized soap of
napthenic and palmitic acids (hence the name.)

Thermites are useful tools in metallurgy.

So there's a reason to study them outside of their military utility.

Napalm has no peacetime application that I am aware of. It was designed to be a more effective aerial-delivered incendiary than what was already in
use, particularly against densely populated targets with dwellings mostly made of wood and paper (such as major Japanese cities.)

So honestly, the chemistry is not very interesting (you would do better to learn about detergents and surfactants)

We don't really discuss weapons (or major components of weapons) here unless there's some interesting chemistry behind them. I've made the personal
judgment that there are few upsides, and many downsides, to discussing napalm on an amateur chemistry forum.